Five Commandments
Entering other worlds is impossible. # Only a god can resurrect a soul. # Only a god can immortalize a soul. # The present holds fragments of the past, and these fragments will create the future. # Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only recycled with a constant value. These are the Five Commandments, five irrefutable rules that the world of Laoch is bound by. These commandments were formed upon the creation of Laoch, so as to make it as similar to a real world as possible, and in order to keep it functioning. No person that exists within Laoch can break these commandments, including gods. Because of their unbreakable nature, however, each of these commandments can be exploited to preform incredible feats called "miracles", as well as acts of "magic". Entering other worlds is impossible. This commandment was created to prevent any being within Laoch from disturbing other worlds, as all things that exist within Laoch would be erased if they so much as left the boundaries of their reality. This is because leaving Laoch would remove one from the system of life and death, effectively making them neither alive nor death, resulting in their removal because such a state cannot exist. This commandment can be manipulated to allow for space bending magic, by converting the users body into energy, and sending that energy through space or through other worlds, and returning the energy to another location. This commandment can also be exploited to summon familiars from other worlds or dimensions as familiars, or to borrow energy from another source. This is possible because beings outside of Laoch are not bound by the commandments, and thus interacting with them is not considered breaking the commandment. Only a god can resurrect a soul. This commandment was created to prevent disruption of the system of life and death, as well as to allow gods to correct abnormal deaths, or deaths that should not have occurred. If a mortal attempted to resurrect the soul, the cost of energy would be so great that it would kill the summoner and erase their existence, effectively voiding the spell. This commandment can be manipulated to allow for the summoning of heroic constructs, by bringing forth the constructed legend of a hero, called a spirit, instead of the hero's soul. This creates a monumental energy cost, but a majority of it is supplied by Valhalla. This makes it impossible to summon a regular person, as they have no legend, and the energy cost would be fatal without Valhalla's assistance. This commandment can also be manipulated to repeatedly summon a spirit familiar, as they are soulless beings. A cost still exists, but it is not life threatening. Only a god can immortalize a soul. This commandment exists to prevent beings from escaping death, and to allow for the creation of gods other than Rí. This is the only commandment that cannot be exploited in any way. The present holds fragments of the past, and these fragments will create the future. Perhaps the most cryptic of the commandments, this is what allowed for Laoch to be created. Upon Rí's death as a mortal, he was granted immense power through unknown circumstances. With this power he granted his wish of creating Laoch, but because there was only a fixed amount of power Rí was given, rules had to be applied to the world immediately in order to sustain it's existence, and thus, the five commandments were created. This commandment also defines the system of life and death. Because the world of Laoch only has a fixed amount of energy, there is only enough life force for a certain amount of beings to exist at a time. In order to make sure that the world would not get drained as these beings would reproduce, their energy became limited, and slowly drained as they aged creating a state called mortality. In order for the ones who died to not be forgotten, a construct of their souls was engraved in a "Heaven" and this construct was then recycled alongside their souls energy to create descendants with similar features and personalities. Heroes, however, are a different matter, as these people were recorded twice, once for the person they were in Heaven, and a second as a manifestation of their legend in Valhalla, with both constructs being linked as the same person. Because of the unique circumstances this commandment and commandment two create for heroes, this is what made it possible to summon an accurate manifestation of a hero, so long as a "fragment of the past", an item that the hero held precious, was present as a catalyst. This commandment also can be manipulated by descendants of heroes to use weaker versions of their ancestors abilities. Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only recycled with a constant value. This commandment ensured that energy could not be arbitrarily created or destroyed, and that it would hold constant value, further enforcing the system of life and death. This commandment can be manipulated to create spirit contracts, by placing two items of equal value at risk if the contracts conditions are broken. This forces contract is to remain in a state of energy with constant value. When a spirit contract manifests, this energy can be further used.